BILL NUMBER: SB 590	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Senator Morrow

                        FEBRUARY 23, 1999

   An act to amend Section 3701 of the Penal Code, relating to death
row inmates.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   SB 590, as introduced, Morrow.  Death row inmates:  sanity.
   Existing law requires a warden of a prison who has good reason to
believe that a defendant, under judgment of death and after delivery
to the warden for execution, has become insane, to call that fact to
the attention of the district attorney of the county where the prison
is situated.  Existing law also requires the district attorney to
file a petition in the superior court of that county asking that the
defendant's sanity be inquired into by a specified procedure that
includes a hearing.
   This bill would provide instead, that the warden notify the
district attorney of the county where the information or indictment
resulting in the judgment of death was filed.  This bill would also
provide that if there are judgments of death from more than one
county, the defendant would be entitled to only one hearing inquiring
into the defendant's sanity, to be held in the county where the last
judgment in time was entered.
   Vote:  majority.  Appropriation:  no.  Fiscal committee:  no.
State-mandated local program:  no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:


  SECTION 1.  Section 3701 of the Penal Code is amended to read:
   3701.   (a)  If, after his  or her  delivery to
the warden for execution, there is good reason to believe that a
defendant, under judgment of death, has become insane, the warden
must call such fact to the attention of the district attorney of the
county in which  the prison is situated   the
information or indictment resulting in the judgment of death was
filed  , whose duty it is to immediately file in the superior
court of  such   that  county a petition,
stating the conviction and judgment, and the fact that the defendant
is believed to be insane, and asking that the question of his  or
her  sanity be inquired into.  Thereupon the court must at once
cause to be summoned and impaneled, from the regular jury list of
 the   that  county, a jury of 12 persons
to hear such inquiry.  
   (b) If there are judgments of death from more than one county, the
defendant shall be entitled to only one hearing on this inquiry,
which shall be held in the county where the last judgment in time was
entered.